ERAVE'S PROFILE

author=BadLuck
I would argue, at least for the writing aspect, that it didn't quite hit "simple, done well". It almost feels like the writing is trying too hard to be simple, instead of just being naturally that way. It feels forced to me. Considering the writing chops you have on your team, this seems like a huge missed opportunity. I mean, making The Way 2 with this likely wasn't the way to go.

Actually, Hero's Realm might be the game I'd point to as a good example of "simple, done well" as far as writing goes.

Still, the game seems like it's being received pretty well, and from what I can see, not everyone shares this criticism.

Anyway, congrats on what appears to be a really solid release. My suggestion, offered humbly and with the understanding that I may not be interpreting things correctly, would be to make the next game without such a singular goal in mind for the writing. My impression is that you overcooked it, so to speak.

I really can't overstate the fact that I may be totally off base with that criticism.

Fair points! The dev team has been talking about this a lot. And some of it we agree with, but we can't be in endless dev mode, and are already thinking about what comes next :)

We are writing a Post Mortem now, one small regret we have is how Luke came on board in the project. Originally when it was a 2 man team, we hired Luke as a contractor to write a script to a pre-existing game script/world we had roughly sketched out. He took a lot of liberties and added new characters, areas and tweaked the plot a lot, but he mostly followed this basic frame work. Another thing we should have considered doing is working harder with the Kickstarter Backers to have less immersion breaking dialogue. Ah well, we had money to raise :)!

BTW, I bought Ara Fell a while ago. I need to finally sit down and play it!

Hey NightBlade, long time old friend. I'm sad you feel that way, but that's ok. If we wanted to make a game that would have had more commercial successful we would have just gone to a new genre completely. Just the fact that 99% of people assume this is an rpgmaker game and the extremely toxic association that comes with it is bad enough. However, with over $30k of money invested, over 3 1/2 years of development, and EVERY SINGLE RESOURCE (art, music, SFX, code, script) created from scratch we wanted to make the game we really believed in. From the start that was a light hearted, extremely playable and fun classic JRPG romp. "Simple, done well." I understand not everyone will enjoy that, that's fine.

Thanks for the comments, everyone.

Most the gravestones are kickstarter backers too.

author=Ephiam
I just defeated the boss of the Wind Tower and obtained my fourth party member, and I've gotta say that I'm absolutely loving the experience so far! Your sprites are fantastic, and everything's just... well, it's eye-candy!

I found the battles to be a little iffy at first, but then quickly grew on me once I got about an hour in.

OH! And before I forget... I'm not sure HOW or WHY it happened, but there was a female NPC in the north of Adam that I could walk on and over. But then I suddenly couldn't? Weird.

That's weird. Hmm I'll check it out.

author=zDS
Very interesting interview! I found working in a team to be quite hard in the past. It's a lot of hard work to pull it off, especially for passionate people. I'm glad you guys pulled it off this long! I definitely look forward to playing your game.

Thanks! Not much longer. And yes a team can be challenging, but rewarding when people can specialize I think. Also compromise can be a good thing when forging ideas.